1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of electrical connectors and in particular to an electrical connector with LEDs exposed at a mating face thereof for providing a visible indication of the connection between the electrical connector and a mating connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrical connectors, such as Modular jacks, usually use LEDs for indicating an electrical connection with a mating plug. There are several means of mounting the LEDs to the electrical connectors. U.S. Pat. No. 5,613,873 issued to Bell, Jr. on Mar. 25, 1997 discloses a conventional modular jack with a pair of integral LEDs. The modular jack has a jack housing defining a recess in a front face and a pair of passageways extending from the recess to a back face. A light-emitting portion of each LED is received in the recess and a pair of electrical leads of each LED is inserted through corresponding passageways and is bent to be mounted on a mother PCB. However, inserting the electrical leads, which have little rigidity, through the long passageways is a difficult process, and replacing burned out LEDs will be difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,227,911 issued to Boutros et al. on May 8, 2001 solves the above problem by using an LED sub-module attached to a rear portion of a jack housing. A pair of LEDs is mounted on the sub-module and extends to a mating face of the housing. The electrical leads from the LEDs extend downwardly close to and substantially parallel with contact leads of the connector before they are secured to a mother PCB. Since LEDs generate a significant amount of electrical noise, the proximity of the LED leads to the connector contact leads could adversely affect data transmitted through the connector.
U.S. Pat. 6,428,361 issued to Imschweiler et al. on Aug. 6, 2002 teaches a related modular jack using a PCB attached to a rear portion of a jack housing. A pair of LEDs, together with contacts and toroids for filtering applications, are mounted on the PCB and terminate to a mother PCB via wiring patterns on the PCB. However, attachment of the LEDs to the same jack PCB contributes to crowding of circuit traces, and fails to mitigate noise from the LEDs since the LED electrical traces are still very near those of the connector contacts.
Hence, an electrical connector with improved LED mounting means is needed to overcome the foregoing shortcomings.
A main object of the present invention is to provide a compact electrical connector with LEDs.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector having improved performance.
An electrical connector for being mounted to a mother PCB includes an insulative housing defining at least one receiving slot for receiving at least one mating connector, a plurality of conductive terminals received in the insulative housing and extending into the at least one receiving slot, and an LED subassembly attached to the housing. The LED subassembly includes a pair of LEDs and an internal PCB to which the LEDs are mounted. The internal PCB is separately connected to the mother PCB, so the LED circuitry is electrically isolated from the conductive terminals before their connection to the mother PCB.